


Thunderbirds: Jane's Journal

by wraithe



Series: Thunderbirds [1]
Category: 30 Seconds to Mars
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-28
Updated: 2018-04-12
Packaged: 2019-03-10 19:02:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 9,323
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13507821
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wraithe/pseuds/wraithe
Summary: Excerpts from Jane's Journal as she goes on walkabout.  Part of the Thunderbirds series.





	1. Chapter 1

August 22, 2003 Day 4

 

I boxed up most of the things I brought with me and mailed them back to my parent's house before flying out of Antwerp last night. I bought some more practical clothing and hiking supplies once I landed here in Lima, and I'll be leaving for Cusco in the morning. I'm still not sure what I'm doing – I'm figuring most of this out as I go – but I'll have a day's layover once I arrive, to get used to the altitude in the Andes, so I guess I'll have some time to figure it out then.

A sort of numbness settled into me once I got to Antwerp. It is a beautiful city but it felt so much the same as everywhere else I had been. Then I realized it was my own fault. Nice hotels with soft white sheets and room service had become my life the last few years. Moving from hotel to hotel wasn't going to break me free from whatever spell had settled over me. I needed to get out of that world. I needed to join the real one.

My phone finally stopped ringing so much yesterday but there has been a flood of text messages and e-mails. I called my mom to let her know I was all right, that I was traveling and might be unreachable but that I would call her as soon as I could. She didn't seem particularly concerned so I guess Mitch hadn't told her anything yet. I hope he doesn't worry her. I did email him and let him know that I was okay, that it wasn't about him, that I would be okay but I didn't feel ready to talk. He has left me alone since then.

Most of the calls and texts have been from Roger, but I can't bring myself tospeak to him. I feel more betrayed by him than anyone else. I agree that maybe we had grown too dependent on one another, but throwing me out into shark-infested waters to teach me to swim wasn't the best way to break that cycle. It feels like he deliberately tried to hurt me, like one of those old movies where the kids have kept a wild animal they know they shouldn't have and now they're releasing it in the woods, throwing sticks at it and telling it to shoo so it will leave instead of sticking around and loving them the way it always has. But I'm not a wild animal, I don't belong in the woods, and I don't need to have sticks thrown at me to get a message. If he wanted independence so bad then he needs to stop calling me and enjoy it. Maybe I should throw some sticks at him. Maybe I already am.

Jared keeps texting me. He's the only one I'm tempted to respond to right now. He's so concerned about what Shannon said, about me thinking he was just manipulating me somehow to get sex out of me. Which is part of the problem. I don't for a minute believe what Shannon said. I mean, what he does with other women, I have no idea, but I know what went on in that hotel room. I know it was my idea and not Jared's. I wasn't tricked into doing anything. If anyone got used it was Jared. He was just a little something to distract me from the hurt for a while. But that's all Jared is concerned about. He doesn't ask how I am really, or what I'm up to. He's just trying to make sure I don't think badly of him. In reality, the reason I am upset with him isn't that I think he used me, it's because I only asked one thing of him, that we not tell Shannon about what went on between us. One thing. He couldn't even do that, and although I know he was trying to help me, he and Shannon were already at each other's throats before I pulled out of that parking lot. It was the one thing I didn't want to happen. I knew I couldn't trust Jared either. The only person I can trust right now is myself, and even that trust is on shaky ground.

Shannon hasn't called. He hasn't texted, he hasn't emailed me, there's been nothing. Complete radio silence. I don't want to talk to him either, I would ignore him the same way I am ignoring everyone else, but I admit, part of me wants him to at least try. Hating him hurts enough. Knowing he probably hates me too right now is just an extra dagger in my heart.

I will get through this. I will find myself again. Once I do, then I will decide who gets to be in my life and who doesn't. If none of them are interested by then, so be it.

 

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

August 25, 2003 Day 7

 

Well, here we are. One week since everything fell apart. One week since I walked away from what was left. One week of cycling wildly between determination to become more than what I was and desperately wanting back everything that I had.

As I write in my notebook I am sitting in the shadow of Machu Picchu, watching as throngs of tourists come and go, and I wonder about all of them, what experiences they carry here with them, what they will carry away when they go. The physical beauty here is awe-inspiring, but nothing else seems to touch me. The numbness at my core is still immovable. I will keep moving forward.

There is, unsurprisingly, no cell service out here and my phone has been silent for days. It has been a relief. I should be back to somewhere more settled next week and I am hoping by then I might be able to face people. I should at least call Mitch.

I have had a bit of a reality check traveling on my own. The last few years I have been lucky, jetting around with Roger and Angus, seeing many beautiful cities and spending weekends in exotic ports, never having to spare much thought for my personal safety. Without the protection of my male escorts and luxury resorts, the focus of my treks has already drastically changed. It's not simply being more aware of my surroundings or trying not get assaulted or pick-pocketed. I met a small group of Canadian friends yesterday, three guys and one girl. They invited me to come with them on their hike of Rainbow Mountain. If it had been Roger and me or if I had been with Angus I would have accepted right away, without hesitation. Instead, I had to stop and calculate if these people wanted to harm me. It's not that I was invulnerable with my male escorts, but it wasn't the same. Finally deciding to go with them meant spending the entire day with them first, and getting all their names, and going back to my hotel to send an email to my parents about where I was going and leaving word with the front desk about my plans, and making sure that my new friends understood that people knew I was with them and by God someone would come looking if I didn't turn up again at the expected time. And still I'm anxious. The problem is I don't' know if maybe I should have been more anxious before, or this is appropriate now, or if I just have had my trust so destroyed I don't know how to related to people anymore.

I haven't decided where I'm going next. Maybe my new acquaintances will have some thoughts on that. I'm just trying to be in the now.

Why do I want to call Jared?

 


	3. Chapter 3

September 6, 2003 Day 19

 

Well, a fortnight without my 'soft white sheets and room service' seems to be my limit. After spending the last two weeks hiking all over Peru I flew into Liberia yesterday and promptly caught a ride out to the Papagayo Peninsula and checked in at The Four Seasons. I've been to Costa Rica before, with Angus, although we didn't stay here but rather at some sprawling resort in Islita Beach with hammocks on a terrace overlooking the ocean. It was actually one of the very first trips we took alone, without our usual entourage of models and party people. He was so sweet to me then, or so I thought, always making a fuss over me, seemingly deeply concerned for my welfare and state of mind after losing Jefferson. I'm pretty sure now I wasn't nearly the mess he made me think I was. He was gaslighting me. I was just too naive to know the difference.

If I am going to recognize a hard truth about Angus from that period then I need to recognize one about myself as well. Maybe I'm not an addict, at least not yet, but every time things in my life get rough or uncomfortable my first impulse to either get drunk or high. I definitely have a problem. I don't know what to label it, or how to handle it really, and I'm not exactly in a place to tackle it either. For now, I'm just swearing off of all of it, even wine with dinner, and I guess I'll come back to that problem eventually. I have enough work on myself to do already.

That simple decision nearly died an hour after a made it though, to be honest. I had resolved to call Mitch as soon as I got settled in but the longer I stared at that phone the more I wanted a few drinks in me first. Somehow, however, I found the courage to dial his number and confess to him every stupid thing I had done in the last few years. We ended up crying on the phone together for several hours as he reassured me over and over again how much I was loved and offered me sage older-brotherly advice. I had been so sorely in need of. I realized that over the years I had been so unfair to him. I had held him at arm's length when Mitch had doted on me from the minute I arrived in this world. My mother said that he used to wheel me around the neighborhood in my stroller and always volunteered to babysit me. He was my first playmate, and my biggest fan. But he wasn't around when I was growing up that I remember; I was five and a half years old when he left for college, and he married immediately after that so I had always felt like our worlds were light years apart. Maybe they were when I was a kid, but I'm not a kid anymore, and right now, I needed a big brother more than anything. Of course he was right there for me, no matter how much I had ignored him over the years, no matter the way I had behaved after my head injury, no matter how I had yelled at him on the phone when I was having my breakdown, even though he didn't have a thing to do with it. I needed him, and he was there. For once in my self-centered life, I was grateful.

I fell off to sleep after my call with Mitch and slept for fourteen hours straight. After showering and having breakfast I thought I would spend some time working on that novel I had due. When I opened my email I was derailed by the number of messages waiting for me, all from Roger. I was furious at first, thinking that Mitch had betrayed my trust and the emails were a response to my reaching out to him the previous night. Then I realized it was Labor Day weekend. If Roger wasn't working, he would have flown in to see my parents and go to the fair my small little town had every year. We always went back for it when we could. He was probably wondering where I was. Reading the messages confirmed this. I was pissed that he was at my parent's house without me but I couldn't justify taking away from him the last bit of family he had left. I was angry but running him off like that, especially now after losing his mother, would have just been cruel. I figured I could continue to avoid him for at least a few more months.

There was one email in there that surprised me. Jared. I didn't remember ever giving him my email address, but I guess he could have gotten it from Roger. I wondered if Roger had continued to visit him on tour, and if so, had they talked about me? I opened the message to find a few short sentences.

 

Hey Janey. I hope you're okay. We miss you a lot around here. I wish I could talk to you one more time. Call soon. ~J

 


	4. September 17, 2003     Day 30

 

 

 

I mostly stayed in my room for the next week, knocking out several chapters of the Moonthieves sequel and returning over and over again to that short little email that Jared had sent.

_We miss you a lot around here._

_We miss you_

_**We** _

I hadn't heard a word from Shannon, but every time I laid my head down at night I saw him, whiskey eyes staring back at me in silence, never letting me forget just how far I had let him in or how much I missed him. I discovered the only thing worse than being chased by someone you were trying to forget was being ignored by them. Your brain fills in that void with a hundred competing scenarios, each one outdoing the last in twisting that knife a little a deeper, never allowing you to get the upper hand against your own ever-escalating imagination. I was humiliated and angry and I still missed him so much I felt as if I were hollow. But did _we_ even mean Shannon? Maybe the guys missed me. I certainly missed them, especially Tomo and the enthusiastic way he hugged me every time he saw me. I missed the adventure of it all, the changing cities, the mix of familiar and new faces, the energy of crowds and the quiet hours on the road. I was the one that was doing all the missing.

I typed out a dozen replies, some of them only a few words, some of them page after page. I had so much to say to Jared. I had a lot of questions. None of them felt right for an email, and I wasn't ready to hear his voice again just yet. My resolve was still thin. It wasn't going to stand up to the sound of his smooth voice in my ear. I may have been healing but I was still acutely aware of how alone I was, and I didn't need the temptation of one of the few people I could still tolerate asking me to come see him. Not that he necessarily would. I just couldn't risk it. I finally sent him the following:

 

_Hey Jared._

 

_I miss you too. It was a wonderful adventure and I'm sad it all had to come to an ugly end. I'm not okay, not yet but I'm working on it. I'm sure someday we'll talk again. I'm sorry I'm not ready yet._

 

_Jane_

 

After knocking out several chapters of the book I realized I was paying a lot of money to stay in a nice resort when I never saw more than the inside of my room. I needed somewhere to work and going back to New York was out of the question. That apartment still half belonged to Roger, and although he was busy with the theater thing, he hadn't told me enough about it for me to even know if he was in town working on it or off workshopping somewhere. I couldn't very well avoid him in his own home. I needed a new base of operations.

Having grown up in the landlocked portion of the country, when an escape came to mind, I always pictured it near a beach. So I packed up what little I had in South America and moved it all to South Beach. I found a nice furnished rental with a gorgeous view of the ocean. I planned to put in a few chapters and some editing and then resume my walkabout when I was once again firmly ahead of schedule.

Being set up in Miami also meant access to more reasonable phone rates and no excuse not to resume calling my mother regularly. Twenty minutes on the phone with her confirmed that Roger had indeed gone back home for Labor Day and had given my parents a highly edited version of the current situation. My mother was upset. She adored Roger and didn't understand why we couldn't just bury the hatchet and get along again. After all, that is what we had always done through the years, working through our little spats like siblings, a hundred minor grievances lost to the passage of time. I couldn't make her understand how different this was, not without spilling a lot of details that would just worry her, and so I listened to her concerns and told her I'd take her advice under consideration. I didn't have any intention of doing that. I was still far too angry with Roger to entertain any thoughts of reconciliation. But I missed him too, even more profoundly than Shannon. I missed him so much I couldn't think about him at all. Mom tried to mention him every time I called and I rapidly changed the subject. I couldn't get my brain around it no matter how hard I tried, and if I couldn't understand how it had all gone so sideways so quickly between Roger and me then how could I ever make her understand?

I keep mostly to myself here in Miami and I fill in the evenings doing a lot of online shopping. Not for shoes or clothes or ridiculous things to fill spaces I no longer inhabit, but for experiences. I want to meet people and learn about life in a different way from what I have always been presented. I've spent hours searching through travel blogs, investigating volunteer opportunities and considering destinations. I don't know what I'm looking for but with over six billion people in the world, six billion people with six billion experiences, there has to be one for me. There has to be an answer out there. I'm counting on it.

 


	5. Chapter 5

October 21, 2003 Day 64

 

I did it. I've had a secret desire in the back of my head since I was twelve, sitting in Mrs. Dugan's social studies class, thumbing through my Holt McDougal World Geography textbook.

I climbed Kilimanjaro.

It's been two days since I got back and flew into Mombasa but I'm still smiling, still on the high of achieving something I never thought I would. I'm in good shape, and I did pretty well on the Rainbow Mountain hike in Peru, but I was pretty afraid of not being able to reach the top, to be honest. It was a grueling trek, physically and mentally, and the altitude sickness almost did me in, but the sights were beautiful. I loved watching the Colobus monkeys in the rainforest at the beginning of the trek and watching all the unique vegetation that changed as I ascended the mountain. Nothing, however, could compare to the views from Stella Point or the feeling of finally reaching Uhuru Peak. I am hooked. I want to climb everything now.

Our porters were amazing. They do so much of the work of the climb, carrying packs and setting up and tearing down camp, etc, and I would never have been able to summit without them. They are often grossly underpaid and mistreated, and although I was careful to choose a reputable tour company it was still difficult to see what some of them go through. I spent a lot of time talking to one in particular, Joseph, who had been working on the mountain since he was 15. He had so many stories to share and I was so transfixed with his tales of Tanzania, his hometown and the people who lived in it. I have decided to return as soon as possible, not only to see more of that beautiful country but to meet more of its people. I stood on top of the highest free-standing mountain in the world, confronted by the awesome power of nature, and realized what my world needed was more people in it.

I'm still on that high, still feeling like I can accomplish anything if I wanted it enough and commit to it enough. And surely, if I can conquer a mountain I can conquer my own fears. Everyone is not out to break my heart. I know Jared is here in Africa, in Morocco, shooting that movie. We've been texting back and forth a little bit since our short email exchange but we haven't spoken. Maybe, if Shannon isn't there too, it might be nice to travel up there next. It would be nice to connect with someone again. I'm going to call him tonight.

 

I can't believe I fucking trusted or believed in him and I can't believe I'm fucking crying about it now. I really cannot read people. Roger is right. I'm hopeless. I've been led astray again by a pretty face and mouthful of empty promises.

I called Jared. The first time it went to his voicemail and I left a short message letting him know I'd call back again later and hopefully he'd be free. He didn't respond but I called again after dinner and he picked up. I wish he hadn't. He was obviously with someone, which didn't bother me in and of itself. I know full well by now how he is. But he was strange with me, cold and distant. All my questions received one-word answers. He offered no conversation himself. He seemed irritated by the intrusion. I thought at first it was because of his companion, that maybe there was some sort of relationship happening there that he didn't want to derail by having strange women calling him out of the blue. I apologized and offered to call back later when he might be alone. He told me not to bother.

I thought it was tough being awkward and bushy-haired and knock-kneed when I was growing up. I was a late bloomer but when I finally did blossom I thought it was going to make everything so much better. All it's done is bring people into my life that are as shallow as their reasons for associating with me, and led me down paths that I would have been wiser to avoid. It's brought men into my life that only wanted to fuck me, and would say or do whatever it took to get there. And once they've gotten it... well I guess if I'm not in the fuckable category anymore I'm not much use as a friend either.

I don't know what changed with Jared, when he decided I wasn't worth the effort anymore, and part of me just wants to go up there and get in his face and demand some answers. I don't know if Shannon made him back off, or if Shannon was right about what he said when he caught us together that morning. Maybe it was all a game to Jared. Maybe he never stopped hating me for what happened back in LA when we were younger and by fucking me then blowing me off he finally got the final say. I don't know why when it seemed like he had been reaching out he would change his attitude so abruptly. I don't know. I don't know about any of this, I don't understand it, but there was no mistaking the kiss off I got tonight. Well, Jared, message received loud and clear. I won't be bothering you anymore.

I went for a walk after the call, trying to sort everything in my head. I felt I had come so far and yet every time I turned around there was one of them... Shannon or Angus, Jared or Roger, Jefferson... lurking in the corner of my mind, ready to pop out and remind me what a failure with other people I truly was. I was trying so hard to run toward something better, to find my own way, to choose a future for myself based on more than the dreams of a twelve-year-old or the needs of the men in my life. That call with Jared just made me feel as if I were at the start of that journey all over again. Had I made any progress at all? Could I, with these ghosts constantly surrounding me?

I ended up on the beach like I always somehow did. This time I waded out into the surf, the waves lapping at my stomach and my skirt swirling around me in the water. I had cried my own salty ocean in the last two months. I needed to be done. I needed to leave them behind once and for all. I tossed my phone as far out into the waiting sea as I could, then turned around, kicked the seaweed lose from legs and walked back up to the shore.

 


	6. November 27, 2003               Day 100

 

 

I had done a little digging and found out that Roger had gotten a part in one of those seasonal productions of A Christmas Carol. Thanksgiving weekend was their big kickoff and so, with the coast as clear as it was going to get, I packed up and headed to see my family.

Mom and my sister-in-law Audrey had been switching between hosting the last few years. Since Audrey had given birth to twins in June and now had a pair of five-month-olds to deal with in addition to the two girls she and Mitch already had, not to mention returning to work, Mom had insisted on doing everything herself. I was glad I had shown up a few days early to help her out.

At 73 my mother probably should have been expected to be slowing down somewhat, and maybe some people would. But not Marybeth. She was made of stronger stuff than that. Even as she aged now I was still in awe of her.

I may have discovered my love of storytelling early on but there had never been any doubt in my mind who I acquired it from. My mother had had little to offer me in the way of immediate family but had made up with it with constant stories from her childhood, repeating her memories for me over and over until they were so much a part of my own consciousness they could have been my memories. She was born in Manchester, England in 1931, and the rough luck that was to come to the area dramatically changed my mother's life. She had a brother, Vincent, who was four years older than her but when she was two he had died from a particularly nasty case of measles. When the war had begun to rumble in the distance her father, a surgeon, had enlisted almost immediately. My mother said that her father, my grandfather, Norman Butler, had been a very kind man, the type that would go out of his way for strangers. No one was surprised when he stepped up to volunteer. My mother had been very close to him, and she was heartbroken when he left, and so was her mother, but they had soldiered on and tried to be brave, waiting for the day they would all be reunited. The war had other plans, however.

As an important industrial center and port, Manchester was a tempting target for the Germans. In an attempt to protect the cities children, thousands of them were evacuated in 1939 and my mother was sent to live with a host family in Blackpool. My grandmother chose to stay behind, both to help care for my grandfather's parents and to remain close to home and her memories of her son. They, along with my Uncle Lewis, Norman's brother, who had been illegible to serve due to severe asthma, were all killed in the Christmas Blitz in 1940. Not wanting to risk losing the only family he had left, my grandfather made the decision to send my mother to the US, to stay with her Aunt Carys and grandmother, Jane, the one I would come to be named after. Carys had married an American soldier some years before and had moved back to his family farm with him. When he had died unexpectedly, leaving Carys with five children and farm to manage on her own, Grandmother Jane had come to stay with her to help her out.

The farm had weathered the depression better than most and by the time my mother had arrived there in early 1941 things were flourishing. She had said it had seemed like paradise to her, far removed from the gritty stone buildings she had grown up with in Manchester and tucked far away from the realities of rationing and air raid drills, and the dangers of the Luftwaffe. She had walked around in a daze for a while but had started to settle in when news came that her father had been killed in the fighting in North Africa. Aunty Carys had simply said it was a good thing she was already there, had tucked her in with her own children and they had all gone on with a sort of practical determination that marked the women in my family. I had been raised on their stories and I had always felt a bit in awe of them, and not quite worthy of their legacy.

This year Aunt Carys came for the holidays along with her oldest son Archie and his family. She was 97 that year and still lived on that farm, although my cousin Archie's youngest son, David, ran it now. She had been like a grandmother to me in the absence of my own, and there was no telling how many more holidays, if any, I would have with her. I wasn't about to miss this one over a feud.

Being back in my childhood home when I had been so at sea turned out to be less comforting than I had hoped it would have been. Late November in Indiana is generally gray and cold, the more glamorous bits of fall long gone, and this year I felt the chill no matter how many bulky cardigans I threw on or how long I sat at my parent's fireplace. I had planned to stay through until Christmas while I obtained my TEFL certificate and returned to Africa to teach English. But at home I was too much in my own head, doubting every decision I had made, losing my sense of self as I ripped my personality apart at the seams and tried to build something better.

Aunt Carys, who had been skeptical of my excuses for Roger's absence to begin with, took me aside after the dinner cleanup to ask what was going on with me. My problems seemed too silly to confess to her. After all, at my age, she had been a widow with a houseful of hungry children and farm to carry through the Great Depression. No, I was definitely a full stop in the line of steadfast and tenacious Hughes women. Besides, she was 97 years old, she had married at 15 and from all accounts had never entertained thoughts of another man after her husband had died. She was from a different world. What could she possibly have to say to me? Try as I might to avoid her, however, she persisted, and I found myself telling her everything with a frankness that surprised even me. I didn't leave out even a single sordid detail, I told her things I hadn't told Mitch, or anyone for that matter.

Aunt Carys listened to me carefully. If anything I said shocked her, her face gave no indication. She simply smiled at me the same way she had my entire life, her face as serene as always if a bit more lined, her bright blue eyes following my every word. She waited for me to be done and then insisted I climb up into the seat next to her, where she wrapped her arms around me and pulled my head into her lap. I didn't cry, I don't think I had any more tears left at that point, to be honest, but these wounds didn't seem to be much less raw than when they had been inflicted, despite the growth I had otherwise made.

“Listen,” she had said softly as she smoothed my wild hair the way she used to when I was small. The house was filled with people, all going about the motions of a shared holiday. The twins were fussy and Audrey had gone to nurse them to try to quiet them down but I could still hear their periodic cries and the sweet clear notes of the lullaby that Audrey was singing to him. My older nieces were playing Hi Ho! Cherry-O, which they had retrieved from the chest in my old room. I knew the board had a giant red Kool-aid ring in the center, where Roger had distractedly set his glass one rainy afternoon. My dad, Mitch, Archie and his sons were watching the football game. Mom was chatting with her cousins in the kitchen.

“Do you hear it?” Aunt Carys had asked after I had lain there so long my stomach full of mashed potatoes and dressing had nearly lulled me to sleep. I shook my head. I didn't understand what she was wanting me to listen for.

She had sighed before explaining herself. “Don't you hear how it stretches on?” She twisted a strand of my hair around her finger and I shifted so that I could look up at her. There was a dreamy look to her face, and for just a moment I could see young Carys behind the timeworn lines, the pretty young Welsh girl who had snuck out of her bedroom window at 15 to run off to another country with her sweetheart. “We've weathered a lot of storms, the people in this house. The ones before us too, and ones no longer with us. Those babes in arms in the next room, they'll weather their share too. But they're only storms, love. No matter how mightily they rage, they're only storms. In the end, we're still here, still standing. The storms aren't us. We're what endures. And what we leave for others, that's what endures when we've gone on ourselves. It's time to come in out of the storm now, Jane. And it's time to call Roger. I know you think you don't need him right now, and maybe you don't. But I'll wager he needs you. Don't leave him out the storm either. Leave something that endures.”

 


	7. Chapter 7

December 24, 2003 Day 127

 

I wish I could say that I took Aunt Carys's advice to heart, lept up and called Roger, but a large feature of that Hughes tenacity lies in a sort of stubbornness and bloody-mindedness that makes it hard to change tracks. I started wallowing a little less as I stepped outside myself and saw the bigger picture, but the riff between Roger and myself had grown an into an ocean and I wasn't sure how to bridge it anymore. Somewhere along the line, my anger with him had morphed into shame at the way I had behaved. I missed him with everything that was in me but I was too much of a coward to pick up the phone.

His show would be wrapping up with a Christmas Eve matinee and then, according to Mom, he was going to catch an evening flight home so he could be here for Christmas. He had asked her repeatedly if I would be in attendance. I wouldn't let her say. I wouldn't give her a definitive answer. She had finally lost her temper with me and pointed out that just because I was the one that brought Roger into our family it didn't give me the right to single-handedly toss him out. He'd already had enough of that in his life. It was time for me to grow up and stop behaving as if this were some middle school spat. Roger was family. We had all agreed on that a long time ago, and in our family, we didn't throw people away when they upset us.

Properly cowed, I came up with a plan and booked a flight to New York. I figured I need to settle things at the apartment at the very least and I thought maybe Roger and I could share the flight back and have a long overdue talk. When I showed up at the apartment on the 23rd however, there was no sign of Roger at our place, and judging by the refrigerator contents he hadn't been staying there recently. My plan had hit a snag.

I was left alone to drift aimlessly through the now alien space. When I walked into my bedroom my heart nearly stopped. I realized the last time I had set foot in the place was before flying out to see Shannon back in August. The room was still a mess from packing, with rejected clothing piled on the bed. I spotted his old Def Leppard t-shirt that I had often slept in when he was gone, and several 30 Seconds to Mars t-shirts I had considered taking with me but ultimately left behind. My stomach turned as I picked the first one up, and I had brought it to my nose to see if there was a trace of his scent left behind before I even realized what I was doing. Angry with myself, I tossed it onto the center of the bed before grabbing the wastebasket from under my desk. I started throwing in everything that reminded me of Shannon or Jared, walking through the house to gather CD's and postcards, notes, pictures, stuffed animals from the midway, even the boots I had bought to wear to the first concert of theirs I had gone to. I was surprised how much of it there was. I tossed the bag into the hall closet in case Roger wanted any of it and went back to packing up my room.

I spent that night in the apartment by myself. I had hoped Roger might come home despite indications that he wasn't living there anymore but he never appeared. I spent the next morning finishing my packing, my belongings all sorted into neatly labeled boxes in the center of my bedroom that I could easily have a service come and pick up later. Then I ordered lunch, showered and dressed for the theater.

The performance was sold out so I was reduced to taking my chances with whatever scalpers would be on hand. I knew it was risky, but “ _Fortuna favet fatius_.', fortune favors fools and soon I found myself with a rather choice seat, nervously thumbing the glossy program and waiting for the show to start.

Our junior year the drama department had put on an adaptation of Anne of Green Gables. Roger had done amazingly well at the audition and had landed the part of Gilbert Blythe. I was overjoyed. Anne of Green Gables was one of my favorite books and I was so proud of Roger. He'd done a few shows before and had been okay, and he'd worked very hard rehearsing for the part but when it came time for the actual performance he had bombed. It wasn't just simple stage fright, he had suddenly become that weird kid in the fourth-grade play that said all his lines in a strange falsetto while he grinned at the audience and did incongruous things with his hands. He refused to go on after the first night and the understudy had to finish the run. He had been heartbroken. He'd already made big plans to become a famous actor, it was part of our “Roger and Janey Take Over the World” scheme, and having his hopes dashed just crushed him. It had taken months of Daphne nagging him to get him to start taking acting classes. I wasn't sure how we had gotten from there to here, him starring as Bob Cratchett in NYC in a not exactly Broadway but not exactly a dive theater either production of A Christmas Carol. I hoped that we would be able to iron things out so he could share that journey with me.

To say I was terrified when he made that first appearance on stage would be putting it mildly. But to be honest, if I hadn't known it was Roger in the role I might have not even realized. He had transformed himself completely, And where the hell had that British accent come from? I know being American I probably wasn't the best judge but he sounded spot on to my ears. I was completely blown away by his performance, and judging by the people sitting around me, so was the rest of the audience. I was bursting with pride by the time the curtain fell.

I am going to tell you right now that whoever says beauty is overrated is lying to you. I have lived on both sides of that road. Plain Jane would have been ushered back out into the street with the rest of the crowd. I knew I was going to need Hot Jane today so I had come prepared, dressed to the teeth, carefully coiffed and wearing what felt like half the Barney's cosmetic counter on my face. It took a total of eight minutes to charm my way backstage to the dressing rooms.

Roger had just sat down to start removing his makeup and there was a girl seated on the table in front of him, giggling and tossing her hair while she crossed and uncrossed her obscenely long legs. Roger looked about as interested as a lion who'd been offered a broccoli sandwich. I giggled at the sight and Roger dropped the sponge he had been holding before rapidly turning my way.

“Janey?”

“Hey, Rog.” My mouth was suddenly dry but my eyes weren't. It felt like we were seeing each other after being separated by war, tired and battered bystanders who had found each other again at a refugee camp. I had worried that he would be angry with me, that I had been so steadfastly cold with him that he would never be more than an acquaintance again. Instead, he lept to his feet, nearly knocking his hapless admirer off her perch and rushed toward me, sweeping me up in his arms and swinging me around so enthusiastically that one of my wildly impractical heels went flying off my foot. I remembered again he was too good for me.

“I'm so sorry, Roger,” I tried to explain. “I should have come to you and tried to work things out months ago....”

“Hush,” he told me as he sat me back down and scrambled after the shoe I had lost. “I was terrible to you when you needed me. You don't have anything to apologize for.”

“But I do....” I protested.

“Let me get cleaned up and changed and then we can argue about it all you want,” he said. The girl who had been flirting with him gave me a haughty look and then flounced off, probably wrongly assuming I was her competition. “Oh shit, I've got a flight back home tonight! Aren't you going home for Christmas?”

I nodded. “Mom gave me your flight info. I came into town to see you last night but you weren't home. I packed up my things at the apartment but I'm on the flight home with you.”

Roger frowned and sat down in his chair again with a heavy thud. “I don't understand. What did you pack? Why?”

“I'm going to Tanzania with a volunteer group. I don't know when I'll be back in the States. It could be months or it literally be years. I don't need anything that's there, and I figure if you wanted to sell the place or move if everything was already packed up all you'd have to do is call a service to come collect it. I can just pay for a storage until I suss out what to do next.”

“Janey...” The smile that been on Roger's face when he embraced me was gone and I felt terrible. “I thought that...” He swallowed hard and picked up the makeup removal pad again and started dabbing harshly at his face. “So you are still mad, at me.”

“No.”

“Then why are you leaving me again?”

“I'm not leaving you, Roger. I'm trying to fix myself.”

“You're not broken.”

“Actually, yeah, I really am. But I'm working on it.”

He didn't say anything else as he continued washing away the stage makeup. When he had finished he looked back at me and I swear his face looked years older, deeply tired in a way I had never seen on him before. I wondered what had happened to him during the last 127 days. A bad feeling began to take root in my gut.

“You were brilliant out there, Roger. I'm so proud of you,” I offered.

He nodded. “Can we go home now?”

“Sure,” I said, spotting his coat hanging on the wall and handing it to him. “Anything you want.”

*************************************

Roger already had an overnight bag ready for his trip to the airport but I needed to swing back by our place so we hopped on the C-Line for a last trip home together. He was quiet the entire way, and although I tried to fill the awkward silence with tales of my travels, Roger never engaged, just quietly nodded and folded his hands over and over themselves. I didn't want to cause a scene in public so I let it go and just kept on with the nervous chatter but I was so relieved to finally reach our stop I practically jumped off the train and power walked until we were inside our building and through the front door.

“When is the last time you were even home?” I asked him as we shed our coats in the foyer.

“A couple of days ago, actually. We had a cast thing last night. That's why I wasn't here,” he explained.

“Oh.” I had kind of hoped he'd been staying with someone else maybe, or just leading too fabulous a life to be bothered to come back to an empty apartment. I looked at the keychain in my hands, the door key still separated from the rest. “Do you want me to leave my key?” I asked. “It doesn't seem right for me to just come and go when I'm not really living here anymore.”

“I thought you were back. When you showed up at the theater, here, in New York and all... well I just thought you were back.”

I shifted awkwardly from one foot to the other, not meeting his eyes. “I already committed to this volunteer thing, Roger. And I think it's going to be good for me. I'm getting back out in the world again, for real, not just a spoiled little party girl.”

“You aren't a spoiled little party girl, Jane.” Roger's voice was quiet and uneven and I didn't know where this was going but I could feel my own lips starting to tremble.

“I was so spoiled and helpless and blind....” I managed to mutter before he cut me off.

“It wasn't your fault Jane. You don't have to do penance.”

“I knew better. Or at least I should have. You told me how Shannon was, I saw it myself before I even let him back in...”

“I don't mean Shannon.” Roger avoiding looking at me when he said it, but the lump in my throat was there just the same.

“Roger. Please don't....”

“Someone has to say it, Jane.”

“No, they don't. It's not like I don't know.”

“I think it is. Do you want to know what I've done for the last five months? I've worked and seen a therapist. Because as broken as you think you are I'm a hundred times worse.” Roger sat down in the middle of the floor, crossing his long legs one over the other. “I could never help him, Jane. I couldn't reach him, I couldn't stop him, and couldn't stop you or me...”

I sat down on the floor across from Roger, pulling his hands into my lap. “Roger, it wasn't like that.”

“I was so fucking scared, Jane. Jared said you had seemed so hurt, you were completely lost, and you weren't talking to anyone...”

I hadn't thought of things that way. I really hadn't thought much of anything through at that point, I was a whirlwind of my own grief and anger. “I'm sorry, Roger. I would never leave you like that. I would never....” A chill like ice water in my veins passed over me. “Roger, what do you mean you couldn't stop you?”

“Not like that,” he said a little too quickly, pulling his hands back from me. “I just … dammit, Jane. Everyone keeps leaving, like I'm nothing. Jefferson didn't even... “ Roger's breathing had become shallow and I could see the distress in his eyes. “The only woman I've ever dated longer than a week dumped me while pretty much saying she could do better. My mother died and my entire family apparently voted to keep me away from the funeral. I pushed my best friend away. I pushed all my friends away, all the good ones that is. The only ones that would even put up with my shit...”

Roger let himself fall forward, his head nestling in my lap. I wrapped my arms around him as best I could. “I'm so sorry, Roger. I knew you were in trouble. I tried to help...”

“I know,” he sniffled. “I was so angry with you for running off with Shannon but I never told you how bad things were for me. I tried to numb it. It didn't help.”

Boy that was one area I did know about. “No, it never does,” I observed.

“Promise you won't hate me, Jane.”

“What? I would never hate you, Roger. I think I've been as angry with you as I ever have the capacity to be. Like I'm done now. I've used it all up, forever, for the rest of our lives. There is nothing that could make me hate you.”

Roger began to sob and I started to cry with him. If I had thought, even for a second, that things were this bad with him I'd have chucked my whole temper tantrum walkabout right then and there and gone to him. I felt terrible. And I didn't even begin to know how to make it up to him.

“Do you remember that night that Shannon was here, and I was so grouchy, and I disappeared all night?”

“Jesus, how could I fucking forget, Rog. You were a mess when you came home. Like you'd been dragged through every gutter in Manhattan.” Roger may have been scared when I had my meltdown but he had scared the daylights out of me weeks before that.

“I did something...” he sniffled wetly and I leaned back just enough to reach the box of tissues on the console table behind us.

“Have you talked to your therapist about this?” I asked him as handed him the tissue.

Roger blew his nose and nodded. “I should have talked to you though. That day. Before I did it. But I got it in my head that you didn't count, that you were just stuck with me somehow....” he trailed off again. “I was so fucking stupid, Janey, and I'm sorry, and if I could take it back....”

I wrapped myself around him, the way I had in the shower that afternoon, and held him as tightly as I could get my arms to latch onto him. “it's okay. Whatever happened, it's over now.”

Roger stopped crying and he gripped my arm tightly. When he spoke again his voice was even softer than before, and flat, as if he were trying to keep as much distance as possible between himself and what he was telling me. “I sold myself that night. For drugs," he confessed.

“What?” I heard the words but I couldn't get them to make any kind of sense. “Why would you do something like that? You didn't need the money, I know you didn't. And I didn't think you were using that much....”

“it wasn't for the drugs or the money,” Roger confessed weakly. “I just wanted to have value. I wanted to be worth something. Turns out I'm worth quite a bit in ketamine and coke.”

“Oh Jesus," was the only thing I could manage to choke out.

“Yeah, he and I aren't on speaking terms,” Roger joked weakly.

I thought back again to that day, to stripping off Roger's stained and soiled clothing, the marks on his skin, and I wanted to throw up. I could actually feel my stomach turning and I looked around for something to vomit into. I told myself I couldn't though. I couldn't let Roger think that I found him sickening. I didn't want him to take it as a rejection. I gulped in air and closed my eyes and tried to get my heart under control. How the fuck had we come to this? “Roger you need to see someone.” I protested.

“I am,” he reminded me.

“Well, I don't think it's doing you much good. Look at you.”

“Jane, this happened back in July. I am able to tell you about it now because I've been seeing someone. I have a long way to go but I”m working on getting better too. I was just hoping we could do it together.”

I grabbed him even more tightly, even though it was too late to protect him now. Of course, we could do it together. Nothing else mattered to me anymore except keeping Roger safe. “Okay, okay, sure.” I couldn't stop myself from sobbing and Roger began rocking us both back and forth. “I'll do anything it takes. Just please don't... please don't....”

“Same for you,” he sobbed back at me.

“I love you, Roger. I don't need anyone else.” I told him. “I won't ever leave you again.”

“I love you too, Janey. And you will. But it will be on our terms next time and we'll be ready.”

We cried on that floor together for the better part of an hour before we had to clean ourselves up and head to the airport. By the time we got back to my parent's house we had pasted our smiles back in place and for the all the world we looked just like we always had, two best friends, out to take on the world together. But we had torn the lid off and looked inside and we had seen how deep the cracks in our souls went. I didn't know how we were going to do it, but we were determined not lose each other to the darkness inside them. Nothing was going to drive us apart again.

 

 


End file.
